Rage Of Heaven: Chapter Three
by Hyaena
Summary: And the Rage goes on. Dr. Riroroko's child is born, and terrible events accelerate.


**3.**

**Umbilicus**

_I collect my thoughts_

_And I rise above all that despises me_

_Comprehend the ways of man_

_And under a flag we salute or burn_

_There is blood on both shores_

_With hardened mind I traveled_

_With hardened heart I conquered_

_A freedom so ironic, so despicable, so hypocritical…_

—VNV Nation, _Serial Killer_

October 31, 2199

Her clothes were filthy, and her hair was worse. The formerly neat and prim Dr. Riroroko lay, hidden in an abandoned, irradiated portion of the subterranean cavern that now went by the name of Tucson, Arizona. The past seven months had been a living hell—but her plan was about to enter reality, ejected, straining, bleeding and panting, from her own womb.

Her theft of the genetic material from the dead Iscandarian had been discovered by the most irritating of sources—a supposed 'genius' robot, of the same series as the heroic IQ-9. This second robot detected her condition and its anomalies before Dr. Riroroko could prevent it; it transmitted the information before she could destroy it. Since then, she had been running.

The running was, for the moment, at an end. In hard labor, she lay like a sick, injured animal in her own birthing fluids, trying to deliver in an agonized silence. If she were discovered, she would be taken in, the infant taken from her—all would be for naught. She was old for a first birth, but fortunately, had been in prime health when she conceived this strange, genespliced child, a daughter. And now, she could only hope that her pursuers were thrown far enough off her trail to allow her to finish what she had started.

A final gush of blood and fluid; and then, the doctor was rewarded by a surprisingly lusty wail. She fell back, clasping the tiny, perfect child to her chest, laughing in triumph, weeping in weakness and pain. She had just enough strength left within her to bite through the umbilical cord when it ceased pulsing, and wrap the child in the only clean fabric she could find. She lay on her side, her breath still heaving in and out of her pain-wracked body. She had to get up and move, and soon—but first, she had something to attend to.

The infant's eyes were focused, brilliant, cerulean blue and almond shaped. She stared at her mother, almost as though she understood who she was seeing. Her skin was a slightly less tawny hue than that of the doctor, and she would likely be taller and finer-boned. A beauty; all the better. Dr. Riroroko touched the baby's cheek and a rictus crossed her face; a combination of an emotionless smile and a grimace of pain. And then she began to speak, soft words in a dead language, a tongue of which she was the final speaker.

"My daughter," she said, "You were conceived not in love, but in bitterness. You have no father; you have instead a microscalpel and spliced genetics, because you were created to be nothing less than a weapon. I have given you every advantage, made you in perfection and beyond… because you have a people and perhaps a world to avenge. It is not yet known if the Star Force will return in triumph—or at all. We will not be here to find out, you and I. We will leave before then, if all goes as planned.

"You are Atiranhyi Paoa Riroroko. Your names are ancient; you will be the last newborn child to be given a Rapa Nui name, by a fully Rapa Nui mother. In your name is the power and purpose for which you were born, my treasure, my weapon, my beloved, murderous angel." She paused and kissed the child's brow, and finished in cold-voiced English. "Your name means Revenge of Heaven, my daughter. Because… for the Gamilons who killed your heritage… that is what you will be."

She then cleaned herself and rearranged her filthy clothing as best she could, and then tucked the infant into the makeshift sling she had fashioned. The infant would have to have her first swallows of life-giving colostrum as they moved.

Soon, it would be time to break cover—and attempt to leave Earth.

* * *

March 15, 2200

Almost six months had passed; Dr. Riroroko and her daughter were still on Earth. All had not gone as planned.

It had started with the baby. Atiranhyi almost immediately began growing at an unbelievably accelerated rate. For each passing month, the little girl grew at eighteen times the normal physical and mental rate. When next the Ides of March returned, she was the equivalent of eight years in age—mentally, far beyond that.

They had survived by remaining in the underground cities, even when every other citizen had returned to the surface. The Star Force had returned in glory and victory; Earth was green and wholesome again.

But it had all come too late for Dr. Riroroko. She was dying, and she knew it.

Without her daughter's gene-enhanced resistances to radiation, the few months spent dangerously close to the surface had taken their toll. Her long braids were gone; her liver-spotted, scabbed scalp was stubbled here and there with sickly grey tangles. She was blind; it had long since fallen to Atiranhyi to find shelter and food for them. She led her mother by means of a wrist tether attached to her belt, in the event that she needed to have rapid and free movement.

Mother and daughter were cut of the same dark cloth; already friction was building between the two. At first, Atiranhyi was more than willing to drink of her mother's bitterness, but her self-awareness was growing; she knew there was something else, something better beyond the running and scavenging they did in tunnels. Without telling her mother, she began venturing closer and closer to the surface, wanting to see what she had never seen: a fresh, beautiful planet, made young again by heroism and the technology of her alien forebears. At the last, the child could no more resist the lure of the sun than a flowering vine. She braved the last of the old, ill-maintained elevators and led her mother into the sunshine.

"Child, what are you doing?" Even blind, Dr. Riroroko could sense the freshness of the air and the warmth of spring sunlight on her face. "We cannot come here! We cannot allow ourselves to be caught on the surface, and you know it!" The woman's indomitable will was fading with the strength in her body; the words of protest were a pleading whine.

"I'm done with tunnels, Mother," Atiranhyi answered, her tone clipped; already, her mannerisms were much like those of the doctor. She brushed back a heavy, wavy lock of raven hair and tugged on the wrist-line. "They can't still be looking for us. You said yourself that they would think I'm a little baby. I'm tired of scraping and scrounging for canned food and the leavings of others."

"We cannot take this risk. If they find us, they will separate us—"

"Mother… you're going to die. We both know it. That will separate us just as surely as the people you say are hunting us. If you want me to be all you say you want me to be, you have to let me go. I have the datatubes. If there is anything you have left to teach me, you'd better do it soon." In Atiranhyi's sweet voice, there was no pity; no more so than her mother had felt, looking at the body of the woman whose genetic material she had stolen.

"I am going to die, yes. But the more lead time we have the better. If I can hold out until your growth process slows… "Dr. Riroroko trailed off, allowing the words to lie where they had fallen.

"I'm not waiting, Mother. If you are so worried that you will hold me back, I will take matters into my own hands. I will see to it that you do not."

Dr. Haka'ea Paoa Riroroko sat down, right where she had stood. With a slow twist and tug, she opened the ill-fitting smock she wore, baring her wasted chest.

"You have a knife. Do it."

Dr Riroroko never expected the blow; her goading had been a bluff. The hard, sharp point of the steel blade took her utterly by surprise as it gouged off her collarbone, into her neck and severed her carotid artery. As cold and vicious as the blade in her hand, Atiranhyi stepped back; she watched her mother bleed out, the dark, poisoned blood seeping into the sweet spring earth. And then, the child slipped the tether from her waist. She left it coiled neatly about her mother's outflung hand. When she walked away, the child born of revenge did not look back.


End file.
